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Monday, November 19, 2012

Baby Milk Bottle Macarons

Around this time last year, I thought I was at the lowest place I could possibly be. I made myself a birthday cake, which turned out to be the happiest thing I've ever made. It was just the thing I needed to lift my spirits at the time, and it still makes me smile to look at that cake. It's been an incredibly year since then, and it's crazy to think about everything that I've gone through. Sorry there wasn't a post last week, somehow this particular time of year seems to bring out all the drama and this time around baking was not the coping tool that I needed.

After my last batch of animal macarons, I swore to myself that I would take a step away from doing cute shaped macarons because it seems like everyone is doing them these days! But this weekend was Betty's baby shower and I couldn't resist pulling out one more weird macaron shape for the occasion. I tried my best to make them look like little baby milk bottle macarons, with blue tops because she's having a boy :) Unfortunately it seems that the funkier I made the shapes the more bumpy and uneven the macaron shells turn out. They are far from perfect but I think you could still tell what they were supposed to be, or at least I hope you can!

I added a few white sprinkles on the side of each bottle to look like the measuring lines on a bottle, which I think worked quite well. It was a bit of a pain to sift through my rainbow sprinkles to find the right length of white sprinkles and carefully place them on each shell. I filled the shells with a simple white chocolate and vanilla bean ganache. After this, I swear I'm going cold turkey on the funky shaped macarons, I really want to focus more on making some beautiful smooth shells with some intense, lovely flavours. This time around I did try out a tip I learnt from BraveTart, I added a small amount of salt to the shells to help balance out the intense sweetness and I think it's genius. Will definitely be using salt in my macaron recipe from now on.

Prepare the macarons first; line two baking sheets with baking paper. Place icing sugar in food processor and pulse for a minute to remove any lumps. Stir in almond meal and pulse for about 30 seconds to combine. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites, salt and egg white powder in a medium mixing bowl until the egg white powder dissolves and it reaches soft peaks. With the mixer on high speed, gradually add sugar and beat until it reaches stiff peaks. Add meringue to your dry mixture and mix, quickly at first to break down the bubbles in the egg white (you really want to beat all the large bubbles out of the mixture, be rough!), then mix carefully as the dry mixture becomes incorporated and it starts to become shiny again. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds.

Place about 1/5th of the mixture in a separate bowl and add blue/pink food colouring to it. Place blue mixture and white mixture in two separate piping bags. I attached a 0.5 cm round tip to the white bag and a narrower tip (about 0.25cm) for the blue. Pipe the white mixture in rectangles to form the base of the bottle. Pipe a narrow line of blue above each rectangle as shown in the picture above, then pipe a small triangle of white on the top of each blue line. I find it is easiest to use a wooden skewer dipped in warm water to help neaten up the edges. Additionally, you can place white sprinkles along the side of each rectangle to look like measuring lines.

Leave to dry for at least half an hour, so that when you press the
surface of one gently it does not break. This will help prevent any
cracking and help the feet to form on the macs. Preheat your oven to
140-150°C (285-300°F), depending on your oven. Place on top of an
overturned roasting tray or another baking sheet if your sheets are not
professional grade, for better heat distribution. Bake for 20-25
minutes, depending on the size of your shells. Carefully test if the
base of the shell is ready by gently lifting one and if it's still soft
and sticking to the baking paper, then it needs to bake for a few
minutes longer. Remove from the oven and cool on the tray for a few
minutes, then gently remove from the sheet and place on a wire rack to
cool completely.

Prepare the ganache; place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and
gently heat cream and vanilla bean & seeds in a small saucepan until it just comes to the boil,
then pour hot cream over the chocolate and set aside for a few minutes
to allow the chocolate to melt. Remove vanilla bean pod. Using a whisk, gently combine mixture
until it is smooth (if there are still lumps, place the bowl over a pot
of simmering water and stir until they are gone). Set aside to cool
(or chill if you want to speed it up), until has returned to room
temperature and is thickened enough to hold it's shape but still pipable. Sandwich
macaron with the ganache (by piping it or using a spoon to spread it). Chill in the
fridge in an airtight container overnight, serve at room temperature.

27 comments:

Happy belated birthday for last week steph! I hope you still managed to celebrate your birthday regardless of the crap week you had. The macarons sure do look like baby milk bottles and it definitely suits the whole baby shower theme. You should be so proud that you even thought of such a thing, and even more so that you pulled it off! Great work :)

Too freaking adorable!! Please don't stop making cute shaped macarons. They are so entertaining. I am a big Bravetart fan but never saw the salt addition. I think that is a brilliant suggestion as salt makes everything better!Regarding making your own birthday cake: I have been there and yes, while it is sad on the one hand, on the other hand, you get exactly what you want with no disappointment.

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